Lexapro side effects

Godfather

So I started taking this medication called Lexapro to help combat my Overfocused ADHD sometime early last month. Basically my anxiety was through the roof normally, so the doctor prescribed this medication to help nullify it.

I started taking 10 milligrams and noticed a difference almost immediately. For the first time it felt like my brain was able to relax; not fully, but enough to not sweat the small stuff every single minute. After about a week of taking it the I suppose my body got used to it and it started becoming less effective, which was disappointing. I eventually asked to switch up to 20 milligrams instead of ten, thinking it would work a little better.

The good news is that it worked fantastic for the first week. It felt like my brain was finally able to keep up with my speech, I felt quick on my feet and was always in a good to great mood. And then the second week rolled around, and it wasn't quite as effective, which was really disappointing


However, what did stay were the side effects, and one of them is driving me nuts (literally). There's supposed to be a few sexual side effects, but the one i'm having is not listed as one of them, but I know for a fact that Lexapro is causing it:

It literally feels like I have blue balls all the damn time. From dawn till dusk, whether I have an erection or not.

At first it wasn't so bad when I was taking 10 mg, but ever since I switched to 20 it's been really chipping away at my patience. Today it got so bad I had to leave off of work early to see if I could get it checked out.



I used my best google-fu, but I couldn't really find anything similar as this as a side effect. Some of the sexual side effects are present and accounted for; sex is really hard now because of how difficult it is to climax, but the main reason why it's so difficult is because of that constant blue balls feeling I have, even after I manage to get off.


I don't really know how to fix this, or if anyone else has really experienced this before. I tried calling my doctor and the pharmacists, but I can't talk to anyone over the phone with my doctor until I schedule an appointment and the pharmacists knew nothing.


Has anyone who's taken Lexapro (or any SSRI in general) dealt with something like this before? It's kind of a weird question, but i'm kind of getting desperate.

EggPuppet

I did not experience sexual side effects, although I seem to recall others mentioning similar symptoms to what you describe, but I'd like to caution you that when/if you decide to stop taking it, there can be some really miserable withdrawal symptoms which can last a lot, lot longer than you'd think.

If for whatever reason you stop taking it, you should be warned that it is highly advisable to do so gradually and hopefully while working with a doctor to manage the experience.

Also, it can take a month-plus before the medication reaches its stable effects, so you may want to wait longer than a week before adjusting your dosage.

Godfather

Yeah, i've heard some real horror stories when it comes to withdrawing from lexapro.

It's just the pain that bothers me. The first week I was using 20 mg was when it worked the best; I was consistently happy, motivated, a social powerhouse, etc. The pain was there, but it didn't feel quite as severe as it does today. Now i'm not as happy as that first week when switching up to 20 mg, but the pain is more noticeable, and it makes sex somewhat of a painful experience, as well as generally moving/walking around.

EggPuppet

Have you discussed this symptom with your doctor? You definitely shouldn't be in actual pain; this could be a serious warning sign.

There are lots of other medications you can try.

You may already know this, but the main physiological reason people develop tolerance to psychoactive drugs is because the brain naturally adjusts the number of receptors to counteract the changes in neurochemistry that occur. A drug releases more of neurotransmitter "A" (blocks reuptake in this case) -> over time, your brain starts disabling receptors for "A" to cancel that out. When the drug is no longer present, you're sitting there with a below-normal amount of A-activity in your brain, and it takes a while for those receptors to regrow.

However, as far as I am aware, it is abnormal to develop a tolerance to Lexapro so quickly.

EggPuppet

Specifically,

Seek medical attention right away if any of these SEVERE side effects occur when using Lexapro:

... persistent, painful erection ...

Lexapro may rarely cause a prolonged, painful erection. This could happen even when you are not having sex. If this is not treated right away, it could lead to permanent sexual problems such as impotence. Contact your doctor right away if this happens.

Godfather

See, I don't have that. No painful erection, just the blue balls symptoms.

TheExAm

I've been researching Lexapro for my own long-untreated depression for a while now. I'm basically just waiting until I can get an appointment with the doctor. If someone could throw some general things-I-should-know my way, I'd appreciate it.

retrovm

SSRIs have a history of sexual side effects as far as i know. i've been on lexapro, zoloft, paxil, and celexa, and had sexual problems on all of them. nothing was QUITE as pronounced sexual-wise as zoloft, i had zero desire and it was pretty much impossible to get off. but lexapro was a close second, and one of my guy friends from college said he had the same issues as you are on lexapro.

i'm in wellbutrin XL now which has absolutely no side effects, if anything my sex drive is increased. it's not unheard of that doctors will combine wellbutrin with an SSRI to sort of 'help' those side effects.

Godfather

Yeah, I just heard about wellbutrin earlier today. Apparently people who solely take it have the opposite problem; they fire off like a rocket as soon as they so much as graze something.

My sexual desire has not decreased at all; in fact, lexapro made me a lot more confident in myself and it's made my dating life a hell of a lot easier for me. The only catch is that it's very difficult to enjoy sex when you feel like you have droopy old man blue balls :?

retrovm

yeah, i gotcha. yaaay SSRIs. i guess i had the desire for it on both celexa and paxil, but it was a hell of a hard task to get off. for me on zoloft it was there somewhat but i was indifferent and sort of distracted.

Godfather

What it does do (as SSRI tends to do) is decrease my sensation. My stamina is cranked up like a motherfucker.

This is kind of ironic because my natural anxiety also caused my stamina to be sky-high, but now this time i'm not anxious, I just can't get off, and part of that is because my scrotum is super sensitive.

Chessboxing909

Can't remember having that side effect on anything I was on really, just a lack of sex drive on zoloft like someone mentioned earlier. Off the top of my head I tried zoloft, effexor, depakote, trazodone, abilify and paxil, all in varied amounts trying to 'find one that works' ((they all sucked.)) I think I took lexapro very briefly but honestly don't remember much about it, thinking back about it. All those medications just sort of cemented it for me that doctors still don't know what in the fuck they're doing when it comes to that sort of thing. With the crazy side effects and the 'let's randomly guess' dosage, I'm definitely not a fan of today's psychiatric drugs.

Godfather

I certainly think the anti-depressant is helping, it's just this particular side effect that just bugs me.

I'd rather deal with cranked up sexual stamina than this pain, or hell, any one of the other side effects. It does work, but in order to get it working exactly where i'd need it, i'd have to up the dosage to 30 mg a day and find a way to neutralize the pain.

I'm not sure if that's possible to be honest.


I just really don't want to go back to the way things were before. I mean this current pain is bad, but at least i'm not mentally tearing myself apart like I have been for the past 22 years.

Chessboxing909

Well, this is just me, and I know this doesn't work for everyone. But the way I finally started to manage was I started weightlifting and being more active in general, talked with a therapist when I finally found a decent one, and kept it in mind that I WAS sick, that I DID have bi-polar, so when I'd click over to mania or to depression I could kind of tell myself, okay, this is what it is, it's a chemical imbalance, it sucks but it's gonna pass, do your shit and it's gonna pass. I still have my rough patches, especially when I can't be active, but it's the best I've ever been and I'm not dealing with any of the side effects, and I had a horrible time with some of those.

If the side effect is this bad though the last thing you want to do is up the dosage, how many combinations of meds have you tried? I'd get in to the doc soon and talk to them about it. Also watch for a borderline manic state, that sort of 'I own the world you can all go fuck yourselves' kinda thinking, lots of extra energy, all that. If you start going towards the manic side of things, which a lot of meds can do, some messed up things can happen, your thoughts start getting more irrational and it's a big risk.

Godfather

Hmm, well that manic state thing sounds a bit familiar. I thought I was just being confident, but now that I think about it I would occasionally think about doing certain things that my normal, non-medicated self would normally consider unheard of. Sometimes I would even act on them, and not really stress out about the results because i'd think I was the top dog.

Chessboxing909

Well it's all on a scale of things. Picture a sinewave, people dip below the midline into depression often, it's just not always severe enough to warrant medication or needing help. Now when someone is depressed and takes meds it kicks things back the other way, trying to get to that midline. If it gets over shot you get manic states, trouble sleeping tons of energy, confidence way up, thinking irrationally, and the more manic you get the worse it gets, eventually you can have auditory hallucinations, lose the ability to think rationally and do crazy shit. When I was manic I'd rack up credit card bills on insanely stupid shit, drive double the speed limit, pick fights and arguments for no reason and have some small auditory hallucinations, but I'd know what they were. People further into a manic state forget that it's all in their head.

A good friend of mine was much more severe, at one point she drove 3 states away, maxed out three credit cards, slept with a number of random people, shaved her head, started cutting herself, then came down a bit and called home crying her eyes out. Really sad shit. She bounced on and off her meds for years until eventually committing suicide.

But yeah, ask your shrink about mania, ask them to describe and explain it so you know how to spot it.
Talk with them some more about this, there's a TON of idiot doctors out there that aren't even really doctors, they just fucking chuck pills at you and say 'Are you still depressed?'

Gotta watch for that sort of thing.

GoodOmens

I definitely experienced anorgasmia, but not painful. My doctor suggested a low dose of Wellbutrin, but I decided to wait it out instead; it was periodic throughout my use of the medicine. In addition I suffered from nausea and fatigue for the first week or so, that went away on its own.

Orikaeshigitae

Have you talked with your physician about this?

Pure Din

Uggh, Lexpro side effects sucked for me, I ended up switching to Wellbutrin after 6 months (which is great for my ADHD but doesn't do shit for my anxiety...)

Anyway, if you do go off the Lexapro, do it slowly and with the guidance of your doctor! I was dumb and quit cold turkey, and ended up with brain zaps for two weeks.

Godfather

Well I definitely need it to fix my anxiety; that's the main problem with this type of ADHD. Being able to think clearly for a change and not have the constant "weight of the world" feeling on your shoulders is a huge blessing.

Anyways, I went to this urologist yesterday, and he told me that my pain could be caused more from lifting heavy things. I told him that I had strength trained before with no problem, but this was also the first time I had trained commiting to deadlifts and squats.

He basically told me to take some Ibprofein and to stop lifting immediately. He also suggested that the medication shouldn't be causing this, but if there happens to be a chemical that would help cause said reaction, then I should probably pair it with something else like Wellbutrin to see if it decreases that pain.


So i'm going to try this first and see how it works. I've decided to stop lifting anything that requires muscle groups below the waist for a week to see if the pain will subside.

ceres

I loved Lexapro. LOVED it, but for physiological reasons it doesn't work for me anymore. It was about the sixth SSRI I'd tried, though; there are other SSRIs that might work for you but lack this particular side effect, assuming that's what it is.

If changing your workout doesn't help, maybe talk to your prescribing doctor about the possibility of switching to a different SSRI. He may have some thoughts for you.

Godfather

Okay, I just did something kind of fucked up that I know I would never dream of doing without this stuff.

Has there ever been a case where Lexapro siphons away your apathy? I just did this thing and i'm sort of struggling to take it more seriously, even though I know it's wrong :?

Mes3

I took Zoloft for 3 moths to help with my general anxiety. Shit definitely worked. Too bad the side effect of climaxing being difficult stuck around. Granted its not as bad as it was however many years ago, but sex or masturbating ain't been as fun since. I never had a problem going for quite some time before. And now? Fuck! I've quit mid sexing because the orgasm wasn't worth the effort. Total bummer.

Was it worth it in the end to get rid of feeling anxious all the time for no reason? Yes, it was. Still sucks though.

ceres

I don't understand your question. Without knowing what you did, it's hard to say how upset you should theoretically be or how strange your response to your own action is. If you robbed a bank or hurt someone and just don't care, then something is very wrong. If you cut someone off in traffic and don't feel bad, well, probably most people wouldn't be too upset.

jamesra

I had that. I was on and off sundry SSRIs throughout my early twenties, and a little bit again in my early 30s (I'm 34 now). I was on Lexopro most recently, and for that one, I don't remember many specific side effects; however at that time I was having very, very serious PTSD relating to a story I am not going to tell at this time.

I've had general sexual side effects from SSRIs, however. Mostly anorgasmia, ie I could get an erection and felt sexual desire, but couldn't readily achieve orgasm. At 22, it drove me nearly batshit, and its been one of the things that keep me on the fence about SSRIs. That said, while I've found them helpful, I've never gotten the amazing uptick some people have reported. If I had, I'd likely feel differently.

You haven't told us much about yourself, however. How old are you? Can you get an erection? Can you get off? Does doing so provide even temporary relieve? If your depression has lessened, it would be normal to experience an uptick in sexual desire. In general, while I respect a need or desire for privacy, you need to be vastly more specific for anyone to give you good advice. The best advice we're likely to be able to give is of the shape "ask the prescribing physician about this, this and this, and don't take a pat on the head for an answer" and "ask your psychologist about this, that and the other thing" but for those to be useful, we're going to need specific data. If you're worried about privacy, a mod is here; there are things they can do to finesse the problem.

Godfather

I'm 22 currently, and yes, it's mainly the anorgasmia that's the biggest issue, but the one that's the most painful is more related to other factors. I went to a urologist last week and he gave me the info on what's going on; i'm not sure, but I think the lexapro/SSRI is simply amplifying this pain that was going to surface eventually, so i'm not shifting the blame on this anti-depressant 100% yet. I don't get pain from an erection, just from the testicles, but again I don't think that's the medications complete fault.

I've started splitting it up into 2 sets of 15 mg, and the results are much better. For now I just wear an athletic support and it does a great job of stopping the pain, but I know I can't do that all the time.

I will follow up with the story a little later. I just have to work up the nerve and make sure I don't sugar coat it. It's a girl-related story, so it's nothing too ridiculous, but for me it kind of bothers me how easily this thing sort of happened.

Godfather

Alright, so basically I feel like Lexapro is making me sort of a womanizer. I dunno, I absolutely hated my anxiety, but one of the side effects is that it made me somewhat of a moral boyscout. Even if I did something wrong anyways i'd still feel guilty about it.

Now that my anxiety is gone, so are a lot of my inhibitions, especially when it comes to dating. Gone are the days of not knowing what to say or how to act; my brain is finally able to piece things and quips on the fly, so it makes me a lot more successful in the dating field and hitting on cute girls. The problem is that sometimes it can get carried too far, and it has definitely hurt a few people along the way, mainly in the ballpark of jealous boyfriends and/or ex-boyfriends.

Now if a girl is dating a guy currently I never attempt to get with her, but I just lost two former classmates today over a conversation I held yesterday between one of the two. I was joking around about her coming to visit me in Texas (as I do with all my buddies), but for some reason she told her boyfriend about it and he basically told me to fuck off. I talked to her about it, and she said that her boyfriend thinks i'm hitting on her and that there's a problem between us now? This is absurd to me because i've never been interested in this said girl in the first place, she just got her signals crossed and now I got painted black because of it. I told her that if she feels like i'm coming across too strong then maybe it's best that we part ways, but i've done this with my other lady friends times before and we've never had issues about it (mainly because of how obviously platonic everything is). As a result, both the boyfriend and the girl are off the list, so it's a bit hurtful I suppose.

The second example would be a jealous ex-boyfriend. There was this girl that I basically tried to hook up with, and the guy seemed to still have feelings for her, and he found out. What makes me question myself morally is that I wasn't upset that I hurt him, but more upset that I got caught. I dunno, before this kind of thing would never cross my mind, but now that things are different mentally i'm not too torn up about it.


I've heard about how some anti-depressants can screw up your focus and make you hit on girls all day, but I didn't actually think it was true until now. So i'm basically worried because it seems I have a lack of apathy for situations like the second scenario. I don't want to be known as a womanizing douchebag, but now that my mind is much quicker and dating is so much easier, I fear that i'm going to turn into one :?

ceres

The antidepressant is not making you hit on girls all day. It's keeping you together enough to hit on girls all day. I realize this is probably a fine distinction, but it's there. Congrats, you has confidence. It's really what you do with that confidence that matters. This has not magically turned you into some amoral sex addict because now you can keep your head straight long enough to have fun conversations.

I will say that in the first case, sometimes seemingly harmless flirting and commenting will land you in the scrap-heap. It just happens. In the second case, I don't know too too many people who would be worried about hurting the feelings of someone's ex. They're exes for a reason, and unless you're best friends with the guy you don't have a moral obligation to everyone a person has ever broken up with. That's ridiculous.

Godfather

It's kind of a bad thing to do when they're still living in the same house.

EDIT: Kind of. He's living at her parents house still, even though they broke up six months ago. It's very weird.

ceres

I think you're okay

Orikaeshigitae

I've never heard of antidepressants making you hit on women.

Godfather

Hmm, well maybe i'm just overthinking it then.

I'm not used to this yet; it's still brand new.